Going Behind the Scenes
by SoulfulSam
Summary: Ever wondered what happened to Jared and Jensen while Sam & Dean were in their universe during "The French Mistake"? J2 end up in Sam & Dean's universe one day while in the middle of filming and are a little shocked at what they find. Wincest, ahoy! (FYI - rating will likely go up in later chapters)
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This fic has J2 as they were imagined by Supernatural during "The French Mistake." I don't think that J2 are really anything like the characters portrayed here and most of my information about their personalities is taken from context in "The French Mistake." Enjoy!

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Jared hadn't expected the glass to hurt. But, somehow, the gel prop had hardened and then shattered as he'd thrown his shoulder into it, sending sharp little shards flying into his hair, his eyes, his clothes. His side hurt like hell, he had a stabbing pain in his palm, and there was a hot trickle running down his forehead. He was going to launch a huge complaint about this. If this was some set design guy's idea of a joke, then it was going to be his last. Jared was going to raise Hell when he got patched up at the sick bay, maybe he'd even take the rest of the day off, he'd – Wait, why was it raining? Not only was it suddenly raining on the set, but the grass – yeah, that was grass beneath him and not the mattress he was expecting. In front of it, a yard full of mud and junked cars was laid out in front of him. It didn't look quite like anything he'd seen on set, but it was really familiar, kind of like something he'd seen on… TV. Oh, shit. This was what Bobby's house looked like when he watched himself on TV, after everything had gone to editing.

Beside him, he heard Jensen groan. "Oh God, my shoulder! What the fu-"

"Winchester!"

The actor playing that Virgil shouted and towered over Jensen, a look of fury on his face. Well, his acting had gotten better at least; it looked genuine. Problem was, the guy also didn't seem to realize that he was standing on actual mud and not a set, that they are all outside in the dark and the rain, and that the two men with him were genuinely injured. Jensen's face was cut above the eye, he had blood on his hands and there was a nasty shard of glass protruding from his bicep. Was this…was he hallucinating? He had to be. Something was very wrong; logically, he couldn't be anywhere but on the set. He had to be on set and was somehow hallucinating that he wasn't. Or maybe the hit had knocked him out.

"Hey!" Jared shouted over to the actor. Dammit, what the Hell was his name? Bryan – Ryan – Riley – Robert – oh, what the fuck did it matter? "Dude! Can't you tell that we're not acting! Cut! This is a cut!"

The guy was still staring intensely at Jensen and made no motion or acknowledgement that he'd even heard him. Instead he bent down and grabbed Jensen by the shirt collar. Jensen stared up at him with unfocused eyes. Great. Did he hit the window with his head? They probably both did. The man crouched by Jensen and thoroughly examined his face as if what he saw there was wrong and disgusting.

"You're not Winchester. Who are you?"

Jensen opened his mouth, but made no sound. The man stood, taking Jensen up with him as easily as if he was a child's doll and not a 6 foot tall, 170 pound man. Jared stared in open-mouthed horror and thought, _holy shit, this guy is strong_, quickly followed by _holy shit, I should run while I have the chance_.

"This…" Jensen croaked, "isn't in the script."

The rain was whipping around the man's face and the wind was pushing soaked hair into his eyes, but he stood still as if he hadn't noticed and instead just raised an eyebrow and studied Jensen as if he was the one who had gone insane. Jared saw his chance to exit and silently thanked Jensen for sacrificing his pretty-boy ass; he'd be sure to make a brief speech about it and then call for a moment of silence at Jensen's funeral. He slowly picked himself up, and began to crawl away on his hands and knees, flinching every time a knee hit the mud and sunk into it with a terrible sucking sound. He'd gotten as far as five feet when he was inexplicably flung against the side of the house beside the broken window. The force should have knocked the set down, but of course, this was some kind of concussion induced nightmare, so the house was plenty strong and holding him steadily in place. Whatever it was holding him there was excruciating; it felt like a hundred pounds of dumbbells had been dropped onto and then held against him everywhere. He wished the house would just give way so he could fly through it; the splinters and cuts would be nothing compared to this. If this was anything like what Sam felt whenever some bad mother threw him up against a wall, then he had not been acting up the pain nearly enough. The actor – or, whoever he was in Jared's psychotic Sam dream, – had an arm outstretched as if he was the one keeping him in place as he gave Jared that same appraising stare he'd given Jensen just seconds ago.

"Wait." He let go of Jensen's collar and Jensen dropped into the mud. The man took a few steps towards him, but stopped when Jared flinched away. "Who are you?"

"Jared." The guy just stared confusedly so he quickly added, "Padalecki."

The man squinted. "What is a Padalecki?"

"Um… _Friday the 13__th_? _House of Wax_? _Cry Wolf_? No? None of them?" The man frowned and took another step toward him. Jared closed his eyes and hid his face. "I knew I should have asked for more money to play this gig."

"Play?"

A hand gripped his cheeks with surprising strength and made him face forward. Jared screwed his eyes tightly shut and waited for whatever pain that was about to come. But the hand left his face and then nothing happened. He opened his eyes and saw the maniac staring at him with flared nostrils.

"This is not your universe, is it, _Padalecki_?" The man screamed an angry and unintelligible noise and then the weight was released from Jared's body. He felt himself gratefully fall into the mud. "Balthazar!"

He heard the beating of wings and felt a gust of wind blow his hair back. Gone. The psycho maniac was gone. Oh thank God. He looked down at himself. His Sam costume was covered in mud, grass stains, and… Oh God. Blood. A wave of dizziness hit him hard; until he was 23 he had passed out whenever he even saw blood, and even now at 28 he wasn't much better with it, especially when it was his own. He looked down at his hands, saw the cuts on his right side from where he hit the glass, and felt as if he might faint.

Beside him, Jensen still laid in the mud, face down and groaning. Jared could kill for an on-site doctor to patch him up so he could just look away and think about his last vacation in Martha's Vineyard until it was over. Jensen raised his head and stared unseeingly at him. The cut above his eye looked pretty deep and blood was still rolling down his face. Jared dry-heaved. Wait! Oh God, his face! He could still feel the slow, hot trickle running his from forehead and down to his jaw and knew that he'd cut his face, too. He was pretty sure his face had gotten him parts in the last three movies he'd acted in. What would he do if he scarred it?

He clambered to his feet, soaked and muddied, and stepped through the open window and onto the worn-out, brown couch on the other side, leaving a boot print on the cushion. Whatever; the couch was already wet and ruined. The wind was blowing in hard enough that it was raining sideways into the room, destroying papers and knocking empty liquor bottles to the floor.

If this house was laid out exactly like Bobby's on the show, then there was a bathroom at the end of the hallway, by the kitchen. He was right. The room was small, cramped and grimy, perfect for that white-trash Bobby character, but Jared was still a little surprised when he saw it. If this was his dream, he would have expected himself to imagine the place as at least clean, a little bigger, and with just a little bit of chrome or gold on the faucet handles, if nowhere else. After all, he could make it look however he wanted; the bathroom's existence had always been implied, but no set was actually ever built. In front of him was an open medicine cabinet. He didn't want to touch anything without sanitizing it first, but that wasn't really an option at the moment, so he shifted his focus away from the dirt on the cabinet and steeled himself for what his face was going to look like when he saw it. _Don't faint, don't faint, don't faint, don't faint_. He closed the open medicine cabinet door, took one look at himself, and the entire world went sideways and then black.


	2. Chapter 2

Jensen turned over in the mud and picked himself up. What the fuck happened? One second he was doing a stunt and the next he was in…some acid trip nightmare where he was outside Bobby's house. And since this clearly couldn't be really happening, he was having some kind of psychotic break, or a recurring reaction to the LSD he'd taken how many fucking years ago. He sat up and put a hand down on the ground to brace himself and felt a sharp pain in his hand that also shot up and down his right arm. He jerked his hand away and saw that the earth was streaked with red.

"Hey! I went to get the brand of whiskey you wanted but –" Jim Beaver, dressed in his full Bobby costume, came around the corner from off the set and into the living room. As soon as Jim laid eyes on Jensen, his face fell and he abruptly stopped. "What the blue blazes? Dean?" Jim set the bottle down on the nearest surface and ran over to him. "Dean? What the Hell happened? Where's Sam?"

Jensen stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Sam?"

Jim's eyebrows shot up and he stared at Jensen like he'd just lost his mind. Which, well, okay, maybe was that look appropriate right about then. Because someone definitely had.

"Your brother?"

Jensen blinked at him. "My brother?"

Wait, did Jim think they were still rolling? Were they still rolling? But there wasn't a scene even remotely like this written into the script. In fact, Jensen was a little at a loss for what the man was even doing there, since they weren't scheduled to run any of the scenes he was in until Tuesday. Did he have his days wrong? Well, he was having a hallucination of having gone from set to…wherever this was, so mixed up days were probably the least of his concerns at the moment.

"Balls! Whatever hit ya musta wiped your memory. Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

Well, Jensen wasn't about to protest to that. He let Jim help him up and lead him inside the house, where he sat him down on a chair beside the unlit fireplace. Jim knelt down beside him and began closely examining his face and that was when Jensen noticed that the man smelled of whiskey.

"You, ah, you been drinking?"

Jim quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah." He turned Jensen's face to the side and lifted his wet hair away from his forehead.

"My make-up is probably running all over the place, isn't it?"

"Your make-up?" Jim shook his head. "Well, we'll talk about _that_ later. In the meantime, I gotta get out my medical kit; your head looks pretty bad, which makes sense from how hard they musta clobbered ya, and I have to take a better look at that shard of glass in your arm."

"What shard of –" Jensen stared at his right bicep and felt a surge of wooziness. "That's a big piece of – oh my God! I have a fucking window in my arm!"

Jim stood up and began walking across the room. "Stop being such a baby; it's barely a quarter of a pane. And it probably isn't even that deep; I just gotta have my tools on me so I can stop the bleeding just in case."

"Wait! Your medical kit? Since when are you a doctor? Dude, I need a hospital!"

Jim was out of sight and from the sound of his shuffling feet, he must have travelled off set. Wait, was he even on a set? He looked around at the sturdy oak fixtures, ran his fingers along the metal fireplace, and knocked his boot against the hard wood flood. It looked and felt like an actual house. No, not a house; _the_ house. This was exactly what he'd imagined Bobby's house would look like if it had a ceiling and four walls. It even smelled the way Dean always described it; like Old Spice and whiskey. And, actually, so did Jim. It was impossible, of course, for him to not be on set, but then again, after the last five minutes, Jensen realized that he was going to have to redefine his definition of "impossible." From a distance, he heard Jim gasp.

"Sam?" then, "Sam! Wake up, boy!"

A pause. "Jim?"

"What? Sam, Pastor Jim's been dead for years."

"What?"

"Dammit, whatever got to Dean must've messed up your grapefruit, too. Sam, it's me, Bobby."

"Bobby?"

"Can you move? Come on, let me get a look at ya here, sit down."

There was the sound of groaning and shuffling, followed by a prolonged pause. What the Hell was going on over there? Didn't Jim understand that Jensen needed bandages, pain killers, a hospital? Jesus Christ, what was he doing playing doctor with Jared? Jensen got up and walked through the door leading out of the living room.

Holy crap. There was no doubt about it now; he was definitely in a house. What should have led to a concrete floor and an open warehouse of crew members and sets was only a dimly lit hallway. And now he was officially freaking out. How did he get into a house? More troubling, how did he get into a house that looked just like the home of an imaginary character? At the end of the hallway, Jared was sitting on a toilet while Jim bent over him and rubbed a wet bandage against his forehead. Jared's face was beyond panic, but he was sitting still.

"How's it look?" Jared asked nervously.

"Fine. Doesn't look bad at all. You're lucky; Dean seems to have gotten the worst of it." Jim dipped a clean bandage in some gauze and began dotting at the cut. "Can't see how this injury would be bad enough to knock you out, though. Gonna hafta go back to Dean after this; I think he might need stitches."

Jensen's eyes widened. He looked at the old, rusted, red toolbox beside Jim, thought about the fishing hooks he knew were inside, and felt a wave of nausea. "Great. So, you're driving?"

"Driving where, ya idjit? _If_ you need stitches, it's not gonna be more than two or three. And since when are you so keen to go to a hospital?"

Jensen held up his hands in front of him in a surrendering motion. "Okay Jim, I don't know if you're doing some really extreme method acting, or you're having some kind of a psychotic break. I don't really care. I'm going to a hospital. I can't get homemade stitches in my face! I'm a model, for fucks sake! I have a shoot for _Vanity Fair_ coming up in two weeks!"

Jim's jaw dropped. "Well, I would laugh, but I think you're serious, so I'm gonna hafta assume that you've lost your ever-loving mind."

Jensen rubbed his hands over his eyes in frustration, but then another wave of wooziness swept over him. He tried to steady himself and ended up stumbling into the wall.

"Aw, dammit! It's the blood loss." The next moment, Jensen felt steadying arms around his waist. "Alright, you've lost too much blood; I'm gonna have to patch you up now before you lose any more and I really hafta take you to a hospital." Jensen felt himself being gently led by the arm through the room, until he was laying on the rain-soaked couch. Ugh; not only was it wet, but it reeked of stale alcohol and vomit. "Sam, grab a plastic tarp from the basement and throw it over that damn window."

Jensen closed his eyes and heard Jared shuffling around nervously.

"Uh…yeah, sure, sure thing." Jensen heard Jared's heavy boots knock a couple of times against the hard wood floor. "Um…Bobby."

Jensen groaned. Now was not the time to humor the man. He heard Jared leave the room and go down the stairs. Huh; so there really were stairs in this house, too. Another set of boots walked across the floor as Jim followed, paused, rustled through something, and then came back. Big, calloused fingers were ghosting over his face, pushing his hair out of the way, and rubbing along his eyebrow, his cheek, his jaw. Why did Jim have such rough callouses? These were hands that worked outside, regularly rubbing skin off on tools and being cut on sharp objects.

"Do you garden?" Jensen asked through closed eyes.

"You're fading faster than I thought. Dean, open your eyes."

Jensen obeyed. The rain was still pouring in from the windows and getting into his eyes, making him squint, but Jim was there, mere inches away from his face and shielding him from the worst of it. And, wow, the guy looked like crap; he had dark, purple circles under his eyes and his skin was so pale that it was easy to see the blue veins underneath. Jensen had to admit that he'd never seen Jim without make-up on, but he had trouble believing that Jim ever looked this bad. Jim put his fingers on either side of Jensen's left eye socket and forced his eye wide open. Jensen felt pain as a bright light was unexpectedly shined directly at him. He screamed and the light was clicked off.

"What in tarnation was that?"

"Was what?"

"That scream! I didn't even know a man could hit a pitch that high!"

Jensen frowned and pursed his lips. Out of everyone on set who made fun of him for being pretty and slightly effeminate, Jim had never been one of them. Well, guess there was a first time for everything. He might have said something, except that in the next moment a bottle if rubbing alcohol was being raised to his face, which brought up slightly more troubling and pressing concerns.

"Wait, what're you going to do with that?"

"What d'ya think? I told ya I had to get ya cleaned up."

"Oh no! No, no, no, no, no –"

Jensen screamed again. The burn was horrible, the throbbing in his forehead intense. Then Jim was looking him over again.

"Well, not as deep as I thought in most places. Two stiches ought to do it."

From a distance, a pair of boots were ascending back up stairs. Jared stepped into the room, holding an opaque, plastic tarp and staring at it like he couldn't believe it was real.

"You're…you really are…" Jared's eyes travelled searchingly around the room. "We're not in Vancouver, are we?"


	3. Chapter 3

Jared appraised the grimy middle-aged man in front of him. This man wasn't Jim, not even Jim in costume. That was the thing about actors; even when they were one of the greats, like himself, there was always something artificial about them, something that made them an obvious fraud if you were really looking. But this guy was genuine, down to the alcohol-soaked breath and the thin layer of dirt coating his hands. Also, his confusion and worry looked way too real to be acting. Jim simply wasn't that good. Somehow, some way, he had tripped over into some Twilight Zone Imaginationland where he was actually in his own TV show.

Bobby swiftly turned his head away from Jared, then to Jensen, and back again. "Cas, I think it's time you got your feathery butt down here and helped us out a little bit. Something is definitely wrong with Sam and Dean."

A sudden gust of wind whooshed through the room, scattering papers and ruffling their wet, cold clothes. Jared dropped the tarp and jumped backwards in fear, but it was only Misha – er, Castiel – standing calmly in the middle of the living room. In the meantime, Jensen was scrambling backwards as if he was trying to sink into the couch cushions and his face was contorting from one horrified expression to another. Jared would have actually laughed at the hilarity of it if he himself wasn't so much in shock.

"I don't have a lot of time."

Castiel stormed from the middle of the room and over to Jensen, who was still trying to somehow meld with the couch, and touched him on the forehead. The gash on Jensen's forehead closed up, the piece of glass fell out of his arm, and when Castiel took his hand away, Jensen was left simply staring up at him, his eyes finally clear but he now had a dopey expression on his face worthy of a stoner. Castiel turned away and marched towards Jared. He understood who Castiel was on the show, knew the guy wasn't supposed to be their enemy, and recognized that Sam would have held still. But fuck that, because he wasn't Sam and his own precious neck was at stake. Jared stumbled backwards towards the hallway.

"What are you doing? Get the Hell away from me!"

Castiel continued to advance until Jared was backed up against the wall and then reached out and touched his forehead. Jared felt a warm tingle spread through his face and right side, followed by feelings of comfort and calm. Turned out, Castiel was better to have on hand than a bottle of Xanax.

"I'm sorry to have put you both through such great personal risk, but it was necessary. I hope you understand."

Logically, Jared wanted to shout. He wanted to scream and cry, make someone explain themselves and then grovel at his feet, and then send that person off to get him a latte. But he…whew, he also just felt so damn good at the moment. Whatever that angel had zapped him with was a fucking miracle. But Bobby took one look at Jared, then shifted his eyes over to Jensen, who was dreamily smiling at a pillow, and finally crossed his arms and gave Cas a hard stare.

"Well I sure as Hell don't. What's wrong with these two? It's like they're not even them anymore."

"That's because they're not."

"What?"

"They're not Sam and Dean. Their names are Jensen Ackles and Jared Padaleski."

"Padalecki!" Okay, that just took the edge off his mellow. "How can no one know me?"

Jensen laughed into his pillow, but Castiel pretended as if he hadn't heard him. "In another universe, one that is completely different from our own, they play Sam and Dean on a television show."

Bobby pointed at each of them. "Wait a minute, so you're telling me that these two knuckleheads are _actors_?"

"Yes. Balthazar sent Sam and Dean to their universe there because where these men are from is the safest place for Sam and Dean to be. There are no monsters, no magic, no angels…" he paused and then shook his head, "No god."

Bobby raised his eyebrows. "No hunters."

"No. It's all just imagination," he shifted his glance to look at Jared over Bobby's shoulder, "and play."

"Wait." They all turned to look at Jensen. Whatever Castiel had done to Jensen had worn off; the guy was sitting bolt upright on the couch, eyes wide and his lips pushed into a pout. "There's no god where we come from?"

Castiel frowned and hung his head. "I'm sorry." He turned back to Bobby. "Now that Virgil knows that they're not Sam and Dean, they should be safe. But I need more time. I need you to keep an eye on them until then."

"And the boys?"

"If Virgil does manage to get through the portal and find Sam and Dean, he will be powerless."

Bobby nodded. "No magic to crank the juice."

"Exactly. Now I have to go; I have work to do."

With that, Jared heard a single, loud flap, felt a gust of wind in his face, and Castiel was gone. Jared shook his head. Padaleski. It was unbelievable! So, not a single person in this stupid universe besides Jensen actually knew who he was. He had the face and body of a bronzed god, but he was stuck in this unflattering flannel, in a life as a white-trash nobody, hanging out in a room with a middle-aged alcoholic. Oh, and also Jensen I-Don't-Have-A-Single-Thought-In-My-Pretty-Little-Head Ackles. Great.

"So, wait." Jensen stood up from the couch and made a full 360 degree turn. "This – this house…it's _real_? So, back there, when we were jumping through the window, some mojo pulled us here?"

Jared sighed. Well, it was nice to see that Jensen was finally figuring it out. Although, he could hardly believe it himself. He'd always believed in God and magic, but it was never anything that he thought he could actually see, or have done to him.

Bobby looked back and forth between them, newly awkward and keenly aware that he was standing with two strangers. "Look, I – uh, well, I know that you've come a long way and your clothes are soaked and you must be cold." He nodded his head towards the stairs "You boys go upstairs and change. But later I wanna talk to you about this whole business and see what we can't suss out that'll help get you back home."

Jared flinched. No way was he staying here; Sam's clothes were hideous and cheap and, for all he knew, Bobby had bed bugs. Castiel said that he was safe, and that was good enough for him. Time to leave.

"So…ah, Bobby…" Jared pulled the bandage off his forehead and let it drop to the floor; it was dirty, anyway. "I was actually thinking that I might just stay in a hotel."

"Yeah, me too," Jensen chimed in.

"There's gotta be a Hilton or a Ritz Carlton somewhere near here, right?"

Bobby snorted. "With what money?"

Jared reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "Um, credit cards? Debit cards? Come on, I rake in millions of dollars –"

"In another universe where your accounts actually exist. Those cards aren't going to work here, boy."

"Bullshit. I've got –" The wallet was empty, except for 25 American dollars, three IDs with different names, and a Sioux Falls Public Library card. "Oh God. Where're my cards? Where's my – this is Sam's wallet. That means…oh God."

Jensen quickly pulled out his own wallet and surveyed its contents. "Well, I've got…a condom, 73 dollars in cash, a credit card for a 'Lemme Killmister' – heh, that's original – a coupon for styling mousse…Let's see…fake ID, fake ID, fake ID…huh, real ID, must be sentimental…Yeah, I'm broke. And if I know Dean and he has my cards, I'm gonna come back home to find a huge shipment of Black Sabbath CDs and a large stack of Asian porn waiting for me on my kitchen table."

Bobby crossed his arms. "Looks like you boys are stuck here for now." He turned to Jensen. "And I wouldn't' use that card if I were you, unless you wanna risk getting arrested. He's had it for a couple of weeks now."

Jensen huffed. "Like I'm going to try to book a room using that name."

Jared hung his head. "Fine. Which of the rooms is mine?"

Bobby quirked an eyebrow. "Yours?"

Jared closed his eyes. "Sam and Dean share a room here, don't they?"

Bobby's eyes grew wide. "You don't…you don't know."

"Know what?" Jensen asked.

Bobby shook his head. "Just…third door on the left. Don't touch anything besides the clothes; I don't think Sam and Dean would appreciate you two nosing through their stuff. I'll change the sheets before you two princesses lay down, so you'll know everything's clean. And…Jared, is it? Put that tarp over the window and pick up your damn bandage before you go upstairs."


	4. Chapter 4

Jensen climbed up the stairs behind Jared's gargantuan ass. Jared was grumbling and especially cranky from being pelted by an extra round of rain as he'd put up the tarp. Jensen wasn't exactly in the best of moods or jazzed to stay at this little house overnight either, but at least it meant a warm bed and dry clothes. He was soaked through to his boxer briefs, covered in mud, and felt sluggish and cold. A new set of clothes, even if it was cheap flannel and Sears brand jeans, was alright for him at the moment. Thankfully, no one from his own universe was ever going catch him wearing that garbage off the set.

He wondered what Bobby meant by that they 'didn't know.' Didn't know what? That Sam and Dean shared a room? He figured Sam and Dean shared a room. Seriously, did Jared not know his character at all? When the Hell weren't they sharing their personal space? Jensen was always hyper-aware of how uncomfortably close the script demanded him to be to Jared, this sweaty, over-heated, flatulent, over-sized man. It was usually close enough that if Jared was having an especially sweaty day, then Jensen was standing directly in the splash zone. Seriously, how could it have escaped Jared's attention?

Jared stopped abruptly at the threshold of their room, making Jensen bump into him. Jensen grunted and then pushed past Jared and into the room. He spotted the chest of drawers right away and took a step towards it and its promise of warm clothing, but then stopped and stared at the queen-sized bed in the center of the room. Only one. He blinked.

"Don't they have enough money for two beds?"

It was the first time Jensen had actually spoken directly to Jared all day, other than reciting lines back to each other. Hell, maybe it was even longer than that; most of the extent of their interactions when the cameras weren't rolling consisted of arguing with directors and screenwriters. Jared actually looked a little surprised when Jensen spoke, as if he'd just broken some unspoken agreement they had not to communicate with each other. Hell, maybe he did.

Jared shook his head. "This day just keeps getting worse." He unbuttoned the shirt to his Sam costume and threw the soaked and muddied piece of clothing to the floor, then threw the t-shirt underneath over his head. "You can take the couch downstairs."

"I don't think so." Jensen unbuttoned his own shirt as he talked. "It's wet and it smells. You take the couch."

"No." Jared walked over to the closest chest of drawers. "If you don't want the couch, then sleep on the floor. Whatever." Jared grabbed a shirt, held it up and examined it. "Know what? We've got the same damn shirt in wardrobe."

"No shit, dumb-ass; the clothes in wardrobe are _Sam's_ clothes. And I'm not sleeping on the floor."

Jensen threw his shirts to the floor and kicked them away from him. God, those clothes were miserable, but without them he now felt colder than ever. There had to be a linen closet somewhere in here where he could towel himself off before getting dressed again. Across the room, Jared appeared to have had the same thought; he was already rooting through every drawer he could find.

"I don't care where you sleep," Jared broke in, "But I've had a long day and I'm sleeping on that damn bed."

"Then I guess we're both sleeping on the bed."

Jared snorted. "Yeah; that'll work."

"Sam and Dean apparently manage."

"Yeah, well I don't know how, seeing as…what the?"

Jensen turned from his open drawer, interested. "What? You found towels?"

"When's the last time we know Sam got laid?"

Jensen knitted his eyebrows together in confusion. "And how is this a productive line of conversation?"

"Just humor me."

"Um…" Jensen thought back through the episodes he could remember. "Well, that we know of, I think it's been probably about two and a half months or so, you know, because of the whole soulless thing. Why?"

"I was just wondering if Sam's character needs to be re-imagined." Jared turned around, holding a box of condoms in one hand and a bottle of lube in the other.

Jensen rolled his eyes and continued his hunt through the drawers in front of him. "Seriously? We're wet, cold, broke, and homeless, not to mention towel-less, and all you can think about right now is how often your character gets laid?"

Jared pulled a dry t-shirt over his head and grabbed the button-down he'd been admiring. "I wasn't looking for a towel; I was looking for intel."

"What?"

"Think about it; when's the next time we'll get to really root around inside our characters' space? This could be awesome for getting into character. Our acting might improve enough that we get another couple of raises out of it. Besides, why would the towels be anywhere other than the bathroom, moron?"

Jensen scowled. He wanted to snap at Jared, even as he realized that he was right. It had been so long since he'd been in a house or hotel that didn't have towels in every guestroom, it hadn't even occurred to him that Bobby wouldn't do such a thing. Instead of throwing a swing at Jared like he wanted to though, Jensen left the room. After a brief, yet successful hunt for the bathroom and towels, he returned with the largest, least-stained one he could find. He was busy drying off his arms and back when he came back into the room and saw Jared staring into the bottom drawer as if it had bitten him.

"Dude, what?" Jensen asked.

"Why would a guy who has no steady girlfriend regularly use a dildo?"

Jensen raised an eyebrow. Yeah, he wouldn't have expected that from Sam. And these guys were transients, so it wasn't like they could carry around things they only rarely used. "I think you should stop looking."

Jared carefully closed the drawer. "Yeah, I think you're right."

Jensen headed back over to the side of the room that had Dean's clothes and possessions. He pulled out the first couple of shirts he saw from one drawer, a pair of jeans from another, and laid them on the floor beside him, then went down one more level to look for underwear and socks. Again, he grabbed the first pair of boxer briefs he saw and then dug a little deeper for the socks. Who kept all their socks underneath all their underwear? What kind of system was that?

Something shiny and metallic caught his eye, just a flash of something under the socks. What the Hell was that? Did Dean keep a gun hidden in the underwear drawer? Jesus, he knew the guy was paranoid, but in the _underwear drawer_? What was he trying to protect? He wondered which one, out of all the gun stage props he'd played with on set, that Dean had decided to keep in such an unlikely place. He moved the socks aside to see. A metallic-colored anal plug stared back at him.

"Oh!" Jensen cried out in surprise.

"What?" Jared, who hadn't bothered to towel off, was sitting on one side of the bed and already slipping on his socks.

Jensen quickly threw the socks back over it. "Nothing."

"Didn't sound like nothing."

"Nope." Jensen slammed the drawer shut and stood in front of it. "Nothing – nothing to see here."

A malevolent smile spread across Jared's lips. "Uh-huh." He stood up and sauntered over to Jensen. "So, I guess you wouldn't mind if I looked through that drawer, then."

"No – I mean yes." Dammit! He composed himself by giving Jared a hard stare. "Bobby said not to snoop around."

"Bobby said – what are you, seven? And stop giving me the model face; it's not even remotely intimidating. It just looks like you're trying to charm me into letting you suck my dick."

"What? I'm not giving you any damn model face!"

Jared barked out a laugh. "That's rich; you can't even tell!"

"Well, if it's escaped your attention, genius, I am a model." Jared stooped to open the drawer around Jensen's back, but Jensen stepped in front of him again. "No."

Jared grinned at him and then reached out his freakishly long arms and grabbed him, trying to shove him away from the chest. Jensen gripped Jared's biceps and held his ground; he wasn't as big as Jared, but he was still pretty strong, probably stronger than Jared expected. He'd heard Jared snickering about him behind his back, especially to Genevieve about how he didn't work out enough, how he spent all day primping in front of a mirror. Except that none of that was true. Yeah, he did spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, but he worked out a lot too; he just didn't do it as publically and obnoxiously as Jared. And, sure enough, Jared looked surprised over how hard it was to toss him aside.

Of course, Jensen was using every ounce of strength he had to keep up the fight. And Jared was something like 190 pounds of pure muscle, hard and powerful under his hands. But no way in Hell was Jared getting to that anal plug; it was already bad enough that from now on and into eternity, Jensen would see that damn thing behind his eyelids every time he got dressed into his Dean costume. And from now on, every time he played a scene he just knew he was going to be wondering if the real Dean, now that he knew there was one, was using that plug right then, prepping himself for some debauched night out on the town. It was seriously going to throw off his acting. But it could only get worse if Jared knew about it too and was secretly laughing about it behind his back. Dean was supposed to be the manly one.

Jensen took advantage of Jared's surprise to go on the offensive by slamming his foot down on Jared's instep. Jared howled in pain and his grip lessened slightly. Jensen gripped Jared harder and was about to shove him away when Bobby's voice startled him.

"Goddammit! Whatever you two morons are doing up there, just stop!"

Jensen's momentary shock was all the time Jared apparently needed; in the next second, Jensen was stumbling as he felt himself being hurled across the room. He steadied himself by putting his hands on his knees and then behind him he heard the drawer open. He closed his eyes in fearful anticipation.

There was a little bit of rustling and then…"What the –" The drawer slammed shut and Jared started gasping. Jensen turned around to see Jared's mouth open like a fish, taking in deep breaths. He turned his face from the drawer to Jensen and then towards the single bed. "Oh God. Oh – oh God!"


	5. Chapter 5

As soon as he saw that – that _thing_ sitting there in the drawer, things just clicked into place a little too easily for him. He'd already gotten an uneasy feeling the moment he saw the one smallish bed that the guys apparently shared, but he'd explained it away because, as Jensen noted, they were poor. Poor people shared beds with each other, didn't they? But now with all other stuff they'd found, it was all lead him to only one sickening conclusion. His eyes transfixed on the bed. He couldn't help staring, just thinking about all the things that had happened on that bed, in the place where, until just a few seconds ago, he was going to sleep. The air around him suddenly felt very heavy with unsaid words and forbidden knowledge. It was horrible and cloying, so damn bad that it was smothering. He felt the need to lighten the air.

He smirked. "Well, at least now we know who the bottom is in this relationship, huh, Jenny?"

"Huh?"

Jared ripped his eyes away from the bed and turned towards Jensen, whose mouth was slightly open and eyebrows knit together in an indignant yet confused look. Seriously? Had the guy still not figured it out? Dear God, Jensen was lucky that he was at least so damn pretty. But after a moment, Jensen's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open a little further. It was like watching a very dim light bulb finally turn on.

"Oh. Oh!" Jensen turned his face to that bottom drawer and then the bed and wrinkled his nose. "I – you – you take the bed."

Jared shook his head. "No way, dude."

"You don't want the couch, it –"

"Yeah, it's wet and it smells bad. I heard you the first time. It's fine, I don't mind."

Jensen crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, I'm not sleeping on that bed."

"What, you want to sleep together on the couch now, too? Next you're going to suggest we cuddle?"

"I never suggested –"

"Balls!" they heard Bobby scream from downstairs. "Hey you two, gets your asses down here, pronto!"

Jared scowled; it was like living with his parents again, except this time he had a dad who shouted "balls" and was breaking up a fight over who slept in the sweaty incest bed. Jared grabbed his wet boots and then turned heel and walked out the door, not waiting to see if Jensen was following behind. He still heard Jensen's heavy footsteps though clunking loudly behind him. For some reason, he found a certain amount of comfort in that. Bobby was waiting for them at the bottom, arms crossed and looking crankier than usual.

"I warned you boys not to go nosing around up there." Then he saw Jensen and rolled his eyes. "Why are you half-naked? Dammit, go back upstairs and finish changing; the clothes are still good."

Jared cracked his knuckles and tilted his head to the side in frustration. He hated being talked to like he was some errant teenager. "Bobby, how can you even suggest we sleep on that bed?"

"Well, I got nowhere else to put ya. Besides, it's not like the bed's gonna contaminate ya. I told ya I'd change the sheets; other than that, there's not much else I can do, unless you two princesses want to get into sleeping bags and sleep on the floor."

"What's wrong with the couch?" Jared asked, gesturing to it.

"Needs to dry out. Hell, it's so bad I might even hafta replace it in a couple of days; it's probably gonna mold."

"Fine," Jared snapped, "I'll take a sleeping bag."

"Make that two."

"Alright, fine; I'll have it all set up for ya when you get back."

"Back?" Jared asked, hearing Jensen echo the question behind him.

"Yeah, back." Bobby held out a $50. "You two are driving me nuts." Jared accepted the money and stared at it. "There's a bar and grill a little ways down the street from here. It's not any fancy, hoity-toity place like you two are probably used to, but they have great steaks and nice people." He threw a set of keys at Jensen. "I just got a car up and running a couple of days ago, sitting out back."

"Thanks," Jensen said.

Bobby nodded. "Just…don't embarrass yourselves, or me while you're out there. No one's gonna know what Voss water is and they've probably never heard of putting salad dressing on the side, alright?"

Jared's irritation level was reaching a fever-pitch. "You know, we do know how to play Sam and Dean."

Jensen spoke up. "I'll uh, I'll go get dressed. Um, Jared, I'm probably going to go into your drawer for socks."

"Whatever."

He heard Jensen run up the stairs and slam the door to their room. Bobby had already walked away and was sitting behind his desk, leafing through some enormous, dictionary-sized leather-bound book and sipping something from a mug. Probably whiskey. They stayed there for several minutes without Bobby making any effort to talk or even acknowledging his existence. Well, this was super awkward. Jared couldn't remember the last time he'd stood in a room with someone who wasn't either falling over him or at least actively trying to engage him. Because, really, who didn't want to talk to him? Even if he didn't always have something very interesting to say, he was rich and famous so that had to count for something. But, well, he wasn't either of those things here and Bobby wasn't impressed. The room was quiet except for the sound of pages turning. What the Hell was taking Jensen so long? Fucking guy had to be coiffed even when wearing no-name brands and going out to some yahoo steakhouse.

"So…" he broke in, just to break the silence, "ah…what are you reading?"

Bobby looked up from his book and gave Jared an evaluating look, as if he was trying to tell whether or not he was serious, and then looked down again at his book. "Book of medieval spells, trying to find anything that would make someone cross through entire universes like that."

Jared waited for more, but Bobby fell silent once again. The only sounds in the room were the impatient tapping of Jared's foot and then light scribbling as Bobby wrote on one of the pages.

"Oh." Jared nodded awkwardly; it seemed he was the one who was going to have to keep the ball rolling here. "Uh, find anything?"

Bobby picked up his mug and took another sip. "Nope."

Jared imagined Bobby should feel pretty ill-at-ease looking at these two strangers who appeared so much like the boys he'd helped raise, but in reality were nothing like them, but the guy didn't seem especially bothered or perturbed. Sure, he was a little awkward but as Jared watched the man quietly sit and drink his liquor and turn another page, he noticed that the guy looked surprisingly unnerved. But then again, from what Jared remembered of Bobby's character, he'd already seen quite a lot in his life. Bobby turned another page and Jared noticed that he was already halfway finished reading the enormous monstrosity. Whether Bobby found him and Jensen annoying or not, the ruckus they'd made upstairs hadn't appeared to affect his ability to work at all.

"Bobby?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't just tell us to go out to get us out of your hair, did you?"

Bobby put down his pen and once again studied him contemplatively. "Figured you boys needed to take a chance to go out, get to know each other."

"How do you know we don't really know each other?"

The sound of boots crashing against stairs filled the room as Jensen thundered down the stairs. Bobby gave him a lopsided smile and then stared back down at his book. Jared turned towards the staircase and finally saw what had been taking Jensen half an eternity to get ready. He'd clearly gone on a successful hunt for hair styling products and had managed to do his hair up exactly like Dean on one of those good hair days when they actually had a stylist on set who knew what she was doing. He'd also changed his clothing choices so that he was wearing that green shirt that a lot of fans raved about because it supposedly brought out his eyes best and a black and white checkered flannel over top, along with Dean's most stylish pair of jeans. He'd also found wherever it was that Sam and Dean had been hiding their spare sets of boots. He held out a dark brown pair.

"Found clean shoes," he said unnecessarily.

Jared grabbed them out of his hands. "Good."

He'd been putting off putting back on those disgusting, wet muddy things he'd laid by the bottom of the stairs for as long as possible and hadn't even had the faintest of hopes that they would be dry by the time he had to get back into them. He quickly shoved the boots on his feet.

"Let's go."

"Stay out for a while," Bobby called out to their backs as they left the room.


	6. Chapter 6

Sam watched his…wife? Yeah, his wife – strut away in that little black dress, swinging her hips in that way that said she just knew he was looking. The she turned and shot him a seductive smile and there was no mistaking that she was putting on a show, one that she enjoyed immensely. Wow, she really was a stunner, even more beautiful than he'd remembered Ruby ever having been. Fake him had done well for himself in this universe. After she was out the door, he turned around and saw that Dean had been ogling her, too. She'd probably noticed that, but that might have been part of the show, too, turning other men on. He wondered if this Jared guy liked stuff like that.

"Well," Dean said in an 'attaboy' tone, "looks like you did all right."

Sam smiled. "Yeah!" To think, there was a universe out there where he could get a girl with a face and body like that who didn't have a demon inside of her was a huge ego boost. Here he wasn't struggling, he wasn't a freak, and he'd never had sex with Ruby, but was married to… "Yeah, I should find out her name."

"Well, do what the pros do; Google it."

"Right." Sam nodded his head. "Right. So, I should find out where this Jared guy keeps his laptop."

Dean looked around the high-vaulted ceilinged room. "That could take days."

Sam shook his head. "No, probably not. A place like this is for showing off, but he probably only really lives in one or two rooms most of the time. Because, dude, no one needs this kind of space."

Dean pointed to the tanning bed in the corner. "No one needs this kind of anything he has."

Sam sighed and scanned his eyes around the room. "True." He spotted a tall, half-open door to his left. "Come on."

Sam walked through the door and stopped short when he saw a picture of himself, dressed in a cowboy costume and riding a horse, hanging on the wall. He gaped at it. It was him, but not him; the face was the same but the look was all wrong. His eyes were squinting too intensely, like he was constipated, and his lips were turned down into a too-serious frown. He also had a general hardness about him and an air of aloofness that Sam found off-putting. Dean walked in behind him and also stopped when he saw the picture.

"Wow, that's douchebaggy. How many pictures of himself does this guy have?"

"I'm guessing a lot."

"Yeah, well…oh, laptops!" There were two laptops, probably 'his' and 'hers' sitting on two desks across the room from each other. Dean raced to the nearest one, sat down, and pulled up the Internet.

"Dude, what're you doing?"

"After seeing Whats-her-name, I wanna check out a little more about this Jensen Ackles guy, see if he's got a hot wife at home."

Sam rolled his eyes and walked past him. "Yeah, you do that."

After the computer greeted him with, "hello, Stud!" (seriously, did this guy ever get enough of himself?) and he pulled up the Internet, he typed in an Internet search.

"Huh. Says her name is Genevieve Cortese. Her IMDB says her friends and husband call her Gen. Wonder if that's true."

Dean nodded. "Fascinating." He leaned back in his chair. "So, she's kinda hot."

Sam grinned and nodded. "Yeah she is." He was still a little proud of himself for that.

"You gonna…you know…" Dean made a motion with his fist.

Sam frowned. "Dude, she's someone else's wife."

"Yeah, who happens to look exactly like you."

Sam waved him off. He knew Dean was just baiting him. "Whatever."

"Well, come on Sam, when are you gonna have the chance to hit something like that again?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "You know what? You're kind of a jerk when you're being insecure."

"What're you talking about?"

"Dude, there's no way you want me to hit that. I saw the look on your face and the way you turned away when she just kissed me goodbye earlier."

"Well, I'm not saying I wanna watch, but…I don't know. I don't expect you to be completely – I mean, well, I was with Lisa for an entire year while you were rotting in The Cage."

Oh. Sam recalled a memory of a time not long after their dad's death, when he and Dean had had a fight over Gordon Walker and Dean had hit him hard for no good reason. Then the next morning, after Dean had been battered and bruised in a fight with Gordon that made his face look like he'd gone 12 rounds with a block of cement, he'd asked Sam to hit him back. But his brother wasn't masochistic; he had just been trying to even up the score.

"Are you…Do you think I'm pissed at you for that? Dean, I sent you to Lisa. I practically forced it on you. I don't need to sleep with someone else to even out the score."

"No, I know. But I still had that, while you were down there with friggin' Lucifer. And I couldn't…" Dean looked at the floor and shook his head. "You just deserve to have something good every once in a while for a change."

Sam felt his cheeks burning crimson and nodded absently. "So, uh, find anything out about Jensen Ackles?"

Dean frowned. "Well, yeah, but no wife. He had a girlfriend who was pretty hot. Model. And, oh man, you should see her legs. And she's got these nice perky little…" Sam frowned at him and Dean stopped and cleared his throat. "Anyway, that ended about a month ago. Oh, and there's this rumor floating around the Internet that he might have had a relationship with his 'Days of Our Lives' co-star, Austin Peck."

"Well…it's just a rumor, right? People make up stuff all the time."

"Oh, and there's a picture."

Dean hit a few keys and then turned the laptop around with a huge scowl on his face. The photo featured a man who looked exactly like Dean from a few years ago standing in what looked like someone's living room and getting a back rub from a smiling, shirtless man. Sam's eyes grew wide.

"Photoshop?"

Dean shook his head. "Telling you, Sammy, not liking this universe. Not liking it at all."

Sam turned back to his computer. "Well, guess we just have to figure out how to leave, then. What ingredients did we need again?"


	7. Chapter 7

The place Bobby had sent them to was called "Woodies." Jensen had expected a dive; if it wasn't a Biggersons or a diner, a dive was the only kind of place he thought Sam and Dean would hang out. But this place, although it certainly wasn't a place he'd normally be caught dead in, definitely wasn't a dive. It had the look and feel of a kitschy hunting lodge; everything was made of wood and the walls were decorated with preserved fish and animal heads. Towards the back of the room, a huge moose head hung over an unlit fireplace, behind what looked like a small dance floor. There, of course, was a bar in front of them when they first walked in, but the guys sitting at it looked like a mix of blue and white collar working class people. The dining room, which lay beyond the bar, mostly had its tables and booths filled with flannel-wearing couples and groups of friends, but there were even a couple of families seated here and there. Yeah, this place didn't look sleazy enough for Dean, probably Sam, too. Comically, it actually looked like some place Dean might try to bring a respectable date, if he ever got one. Wait…he and Sam weren't…were they fucking _dating_? The whole idea was ludicrous, but if someone had asked him an hour ago, he would have said the same thing about the two of them fucking. But now the image of that bed had been forever burned into his retinas and from now on whenever he finished a take, he would be forever left with the horrible knowledge of what was really going on behind the scenes.

This trip into Bizarro Land jacked up everything. Before this, Jensen had had a very clear idea of his show and his character. He was proud to play Dean. Yeah, sure, he knew the guy was kind of a white-trash redneck, but Dean was at least manly, or so he thought. He could get shot or have his shoulder broken and still go chasing after a demon, or suture himself up using nothing but whiskey, dental floss, and a fishing hook. But it turned out, the guy really kept an anal plug in his underwear drawer and possibly went out on romantic dates with his own brother. Well, possibly. Maybe they didn't. Maybe they had never even been to this place, and that was why Bobby had sent them there.

The hostess greeted them with a wide, friendly smile. "Hey guys! You're back! How's Bobby?"

Alright, never mind.

Jensen put on his best Dean 'tough-guy' look. "Can we just get a table?"

The hostess's smile vanished. "Okay, sure. Jeez, sorry. Bad day? Or…do you have a cold?" Jensen stared, feeling a little confused. "It's just your voice, it's kind of I don't know, weirdly deep and gravelly today." Jensen gaped at her. Was she making fun of his Dean voice? Oh, that bitch.

"Sorry about him." Jared was using his most earnest Sam voice, the one he used when Sam was doing damage control. "He's kind of an idiot sometimes."

Her eyes grew wide and she blinked in surprise. "Um, okay, why don't I just get you that table?"

After they were seated and she'd walked away, Jared stared at Jensen with pursed lips and narrowed eyes.

"Oh, nice job with the bitchface, Jared; very Sam-like."

"This is my 'what the fuck is wrong with you being rude to the hostess' face."

Jensen shrugged. "What? I was just trying to be like Dean."

"Yeah, well, while I'm stuck out with you in public, try a little less."

"Well, what about you? You obviously weren't pulling off a very convincing Sam act, the way she looked at you."

Jared's scowl deepened. "Whatever."

They stared at their menus and didn't talk for several minutes. Jensen was barely even looking at it, he was so busy processing everything that had happened that day; going through a window, almost getting a fishing hook in his face, being literally touched by an angel, finding Sam and Dean's bed…

Fuck, that bed. At least he wasn't going to be sleeping in it. He wondered what he and Jared should even do to act more like Sam and Dean at this point. Should he…should they hold hands? No; no way in Hell was he doing that. And he was pretty sure Dean wasn't the holding hands type. Well, at least, he thought he wasn't, but what the Hell did he know? What did either of them even know at this point?

"What do you think we should do?"

Jared looked up from his menu with a slightly disgusted expression on his face; it seemed he must have been wondering the same thing. "Just try to blend in, I guess."

Jensen leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Hey, do you think Kim knew? Or Eric?"

"Huh." Jared looked thoughtful for a while. "Maybe; they did joke around about it a lot."

"Did Kim give you that, uh, story a few years ago?"

Jared's face flushed and he looked back down at his menu. "That Wincest thing he pulled off a fan fiction website and then stuffed into our scripts? Yeah, I got that. I…did a few things I'm not proud of when he did that. Feel kind of bad about it now that he's dead."

"Wait…was that the thing you almost quit over in season two?"

Jared shrugged. "Got a raise out of it."

Jensen's mouth dropped open. "Dude. That is douchey."

Jared shot him another angry look, but right then the waitress stepped in front of their table. "Hey guys! What can I get ya?"

Jared smiled in a way completely unnatural to him. Which was fine because most of his smiles, at least when Jensen was around, were cruel, mischievous, arrogant, or some mixture of the three. The only problem was that he was obviously trying to play Sam again and Jensen was sure that smile wouldn't look natural on Sam, or anybody else for that matter. Jensen always hated the way Jared made Sam smile; he just always looked constipated. More than once, Jensen had been tempted to slip a box of Ex-Lax under his trailer door with the note, "for your acting" attached to it. He might have, too, if Jared didn't have such a notorious reputation for not being able to take a joke.

"Hi, I'll have the flat iron steak, sides of broccoli and a baked potato, please."

"And I'll have the Caesar salad with chicken, please."

The waitress quirked her eyebrows, amused. "Dean, you're joking, right? You want me to just put in your usual cheeseburger, fried egg on top?"

Jensen's stomach did a twist just thinking how much he'd throw up if he ate that much grease. He smiled politely and handed her his menu. " We're, uh, we're trying something new."

She took it with a confused look and left. Jensen groaned.

"Seriously? We can't even order without getting weird looks. You'd think Bobby would've sent us to a place where not everyone knows these guys."

Jared shrugged. "Yeah, well, they've been coming here since they were kids, right? So I guess it would be hard for Bobby to find a place where at least a few people didn't know them."

Jensen frowned at the table. Jared was right. God, did he hate it when he was right.

"Besides," Jared broke in. "A salad, really?"

"You said not to try to be like Dean."

"Yeah, well…try a little bit."

"Well, what about you? Flat-iron steak. Really?"

Jared quirked an eyebrow. "Sam eats meat. Besides, have you seen me? You don't get to be this big by being a vegetarian."

"Yeah, well you don't get to look like me by eating bacon cheeseburgers."

"No, I guess it must be those vigorous preening sessions."

Jensen leaned back and crossed his arms. Stupid Jared. He bet Sam was way better company than this guy. Well, whatever Sam and Dean did when they were here, they definitely didn't behave this with each other; everyone at the restaurant was thrown off by the way he and Jared were interacting. The hostess probably thought they were fighting, (which wasn't entirely untrue,) while the waitress probably thought he and Jared were going to end up switching plates. He wondered what kind of evenings Sam and Dean usually spent at this place. The wait staff seemed to like them enough, so the guys were probably pretty pleasant whenever they were there. He looked out among the evening crowd and imagined Sam and Dean sitting at one of the empty booths across the room, laughing, sharing private jokes, reminiscing about a concert or an old hunt. Jensen hadn't had a good time like that with anyone since he was a kid, and certainly never with Jared.

Although, some of the directors and producers on set had tried hard enough to get them to like each other during the first few years of the show, especially Kim Manners. The guy always had some scheme arranged to get him and Jared to talk to each other. At first, it was, "oh, you're from Texas? Well, how interesting because so is Jared." Except that Jensen didn't much care where Jared was from. Besides, there were a lot of people from Texas; it was a big-ass state. After that, it was, "Hey, I heard your favorite song is 'Freebird.' Well, did you know that Jared is a huge classic rock fan?" Yeah, great. The guy liked classic rock; so did a lot of people. Besides, 'Freebird' hadn't been his favorite song since high school; he was more into country music now. After that, Kim had inexplicably poured two buckets of water on them one day when they were in the middle of filming a scene. It had taken two hours to get their clothes dried, hair and make-up fixed, and the scene set up again. Jared had been so pissed that he'd refused to come out of his trailer for an additional two hours after that.

"Do you think," he began before he even realized he was talking out loud. "Do you think that Kim put that story into our scripts because he wanted us to –"

"No!"

Jared's voice was so forceful that Jensen jumped a little in his seat and then stared at him with wide eyes and a slacked jaw. The couple at the table beside them turned in their seats and shot them annoyed glares for a second. For his part, Jared also looked a little surprised at how loudly his had come out, and then looked at him a little sheepishly.

"They couldn't air that stuff on the network," he added in a quieter tone, "this isn't HBO."

Wait, Jared thought he meant what now? Oh. Oh! Jensen had never thought of that before.

"I was going to say talk to each other."

"Oh." Jared's cheeks turned a little pink. "Um, yeah, maybe."

"Why would you think I'd even suggest Kim would've wanted us to do _that_?"

"It's been a weird day, okay?"

"I mean, did you read that thing? It wasn't even fit for HBO After Dark!"

Jared cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. "Wait, don't tell me you read the whole thing?"

"Well…" Okay, now it was Jensen's turn for his face to get red. He remembered that day, quietly reading the script in his trailer and feeling red-faced and ashamed as his pants grew a little tight from the gradual swelling between his legs. "No, not the whole thing. But I was… confused for a little while."

"Confused? About what – whether or not you were on the Wincest bandwagon?"

"Well, at first, I didn't know what it was. I think in the beginning Dean was doing something like watching Sam sleep. He does that kind of shit sometimes. And they were sharing a bed, but they're always in each other's space anyway, and sometimes Eric had approved some pretty ambiguous stuff between those two in our scripts before."

Jared grinned maliciously, even though his cheeks were only flushing deeper. "And this whole time I thought you were a Sam girl."

"I didn't know where it was going!"

Just then, the waitress came around with their plates. Jared picked up a fork and knife, sawed up a big piece of steak with gusto, and stuffed it into his mouth. Jensen jabbed a fork into his salad and they fell into silence for a while.


End file.
